SETH PERRY perry.seth@gmail.com EDUCATION Indiana University Department of Religious Studies Sycamore Hall 230 Bloomington, IN 47405-7005 812/855-3531 ; Chicago, IL Ph.D. in the History of Christianity 2013 Dissertation: The Endless Making of Many Books: Bibles and Religious Authority in America, 1780-1850 ; Chicago, IL A.M. in Religious Studies 2004 Georgetown University; Washington, DC B.A., majors in theology and English 2001 ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT AND COURSES TAUGHT Visiting Assistant Professor of American Religion, Indiana University Autumn 2013- Religion in the United States, 1600 1850 Introduction to Religion in America Instructor, University of Washington Winter-Summer 2013 Theories in the Study of Religion American Religion Instructor, University of Chicago Spring 2011 American Scriptures Instructor, North Central College, Naperville, Ill. Spring 2008 World Religions TEACHING COMPETENCIES AND RESEARCH INTERESTS American religious history, pre-columbian era through the twenty-first century; American print culture and book history; new religious movements; women and religious authority; history of Christianity, New Testament era through the contemporary.
Perry, 2 FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Early American Literature and Material Texts The McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania 2011-2012 Dissertation Fellow The Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, University of Chicago 2010-2011 Reese Fellow The American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. 2009 Provost s Summer Research Fellow -- University of Chicago 2008 Chicago Forum on Pedagogy and the Study of Religion Fellow -- 2004-2005 RELEVANT PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE Web Manager, 2004-2013 Survey Coordinator, Council on Graduate Study in Religion 2006-2011 Fact-checker, The Chronicle of Higher Education 2003-2008 Editor, The Religion and Culture Web Forum; University of Chicago 2003-2005 Editorial Assistant, Public Culture, University of Chicago 2003-2004 News Clerk, The Chronicle of Higher Education 2001-2002 PUBLICATIONS Articles and Essays: Go Down into Jordan: No, Mississippi : Mormon Nauvoo and the Rhetoric of Landscape, in Gods of the River: Religion and Culture along the Mississippi, Michael Pasquier, ed. (Indiana University Press, 2013). Employment Trends: Surveying Employers. with Richard Rosengarten, Religious Studies News, October 2011; http://goo.gl/zadsc. Scientology and its Discontents. The Chronicle Review, October 2, 2011; http://chronicle.com/article/scientologyits/129177/. Romney s Religious Dilemma. The Chronicle Review, February 15, 2008; http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i24/24b00101.htm. Lives in the Balance. The Chronicle Review, January 26, 2007; http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i21/21b01401.htm. An Outsider Looks in at Mormonism. The Chronicle Review, February 3, 2006; http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i22/22b00901.htm.
Perry, 3 Selected Short Pieces Regular contributor, The Junto blog, EarlyAmericanists.com, http://earlyamericanists.com/author/gradualdigging/. Contributor (2012), Peculiar People blog, Patheos.com; http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peculiarpeople/author/sperry/. Frodo and Mormon Share Stage in South Park Mormon Musical, Religion Dispatches, March 25, 2011; http://goo.gl/hyabc. Days of Disappointment. Sightings, October 21, 2010; http://goo.gl/pphgi. A World Religion (Eventually). Patheos.com, August 9, 2010; http://goo.gl/6okdn. Here be Nephites. Sightings, April 29, 2010; http://goo.gl/nqw38. Look at this Tangle of Thorns. Sightings, April 17, 2008; http://goo.gl/8e0jr. September Dud. Sightings, September 13, 2007; http://goo.gl/g12sv. Lords of Kobol, Hear My Prayer: Religion and Faith on Battlestar Galactica. Sightings, June 8, 2006; http://goo.gl/diz5d. Why is it So Hard to Talk About Mormons? Sightings, January 26, 2006; http://goo.gl/2neyb. Reprinted in Sunstone (December 2005). I See Dead People. Sightings, May 19, 2005; http://goo.gl/4nt7i. Book Reviews: Byrd, James P. Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2013). The Journal of Religion (in press). Fluhman, J. Spencer. A Peculiar People: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America (The University of North Carolina Press, 2012). The Journal of Religion (in press). Skousen, Royal, ed. The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text. (Yale University Press, 2009). The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 62: July 2011, 640-641. Neilson, Reid L. and Terryl L. Givens, eds. Joseph Smith Jr.: Reappraisals after Two Centuries. (Oxford University Press, 2009). The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 61: July 2010, 652-654. Roberts, David. Devil s Gate: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy (Simon & Schuster, 2008). Journal of Religion (January 2009). Givens, Terryl l. People of paradox: a history of Mormon culture (Oxford University Press, 2007). H-Amstdy (June 2008); http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=14576. Reeve, W. Paul. Making Space on the Western Frontier: Mormons, Miners, and Southern Paiutes (University of Illinois Press, 2006). H-Amstdy (October 2007); http://goo.gl/pe3pq.
Perry, 4 Selected short reviews: Gutjahr, Paul. The Book of Mormon: A Biography (Princeton Lives of Great Religious Books) (Princeton University Press, 2012). Choice (forthcoming). Sack, Daniel. Moral Re-Armament: The Reinventions of an American Religious Movement (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Journal of Ecclesiastical History 63: April 2012, 433. Lindman, Janet Moore. Bodies of belief: Baptist community in Early America. (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). Choice (May 2009). Jonas, W. Glenn, Jr., ed. The Baptist River: Essays on Many Tributaries of a Diverse Tradition (Mercer University Press, 2006). Choice (June 2007). May, Dean L. and Reid L. Neilson, ed. The Mormon History Association's Tanner Lectures: The First Twenty Years (Illinois University Press, 2006). Choice (December 2006). PRESENTATIONS Size Matters: Bible Formats and Religious Authority in the Second Great Awakening Society for Historians of the Early American Republic annual meetings, Baltimore, MD (July 21, 2012). Go down into Jordan: No, Mississippi : Mormon Nauvoo and the Rhetoric of Place American Society of Church History annual meeting, Chicago, Ill. (January 6, 2012). How to Sell a Bible: Advertising and Authority in America, 1770-1850 Before Madison Avenue: Advertising in Early America, conference sponsored by the Center for Historic American Visual Culture and the Program in the History of the Book in American Culture at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. (November 4, 2011). Kick Against the Pricks Goads: Thomas M. Allen s King James Bible Annual meeting of the Southeastern Commission for the Study of Religion, Louisville, KY (March 5, 2011). Indices of Imagination: Antebellum American Bibles and the Mechanics of Bible Usage Imagining: A New Century, conference of C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, Pennsylvania State University (May 22, 2010). Authority, Pedagogy, and Mediating the Bible in Nineteenth-Century American Publishing Divining the Message, Mediating the Divine, Columbia University (April 2, 2010). In Some Considerable Degree, Resigned to the Will of God : Peggy Dow as Apostle s Wife American Academy of Religion annual meeting, Chicago, IL (November 3, 2008). I myself serve the law of God but with the flesh the law of sin : Joseph Smith edits Paul s Letter to the Romans, 1832-33 Sunstone Symposium, Salt Lake City, UT. (August 2007).
Perry, 5 INVITED TALKS AND WORKSHOP PARTICIPATION Early American Literature and Material Texts Workshop, The Library Company of Philadelphia (July 2011, 2012, and 2013). Response to Terryl Givens, part of an Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies timely talk Mormonism and Other Faiths, Baltimore, MD (June 14, 2012). A Brief History of Protestant Groups, Young-Adults Lecture Series, Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago, IL (February 11, 2009). An Introduction to Mormonism: An Outsider s Look In, adult-education lecture series. Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago (Spring 2008). Introduction to September Dawn Doc Films Mormon cinema series special event, University of Chicago (November 29, 2007). An Outsider Looks in at Mormonism Sunstone West Symposium, Claremont, CA. (April 2006). CONFERENCES CO-ORGANIZED The Power of Stories: Authority and Narrative in Early America, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania (September 29 - October 1, 2011). Women and American Religion: Reimagining the Past, (October 8-10, 2003). PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS American Academy of Religion American Historical Association C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists Society of Biblical Literature REFERENCES Catherine Brekus Associate Professor in Religions in America and the History of Christianity Swift Hall 306 A 773/702-4272 cbrekus@uchicago.edu Richard Rosengarten Associate Professor of Religion and Literature Swift Hall 401 773/702-8277 raroseng@uchicago.edu Daniel K. Richter Professor of American History and Director McNeil Center for Early American Studies University of Pennsylvania 3355 Woodland Walk Philadelphia, PA 19104-4531 215/898-9251 drichter@history.upenn.edu Lucy K. Pick Director of Undergraduate Studies, Senior Lecturer in the History of Christianity Swift Hall 400 C 773/702-8278 lucypick@uchicago.edu